Votive candle meets a, soon to be discarded, 9 volt battery. Kinda cool … light up!
Posts from the Idea Mashing Category
If It Only Smelled Like Potpourri
October 6th, 2006 by Chief Nut
Say Hello to the Google Killer
October 6th, 2006 by Chief NutWhen Google emerged on the scene with a whole new view of organic search priorities (putting visible content ahead of hidden content and placing value on “popularity”), they forever changed the face of the Internet, and the world. BUT, is their algorithm the “do all, end all” of search. I think not (as much as I love Google). Raise your hand if you remember WebCrawler.com … thank you … the two of you can put your hand down now.
What if a search engine could intelligently put value on the actual context of the phrase you’re typing instead of just seeing what pages have all of those individual words. For example the phrase “wacky brand guy” (without the quotes) will likely return a mish-mash of results in google. Whereas, if they clued in on what I meant, the results would lead to dramatically improved results. The folks at PowerSet may have found the way …. according to the waggers at ValleyWag.com. Tune in at a later date to see what the future holds.
Use the “B” button …. for Burger
October 4th, 2006 by Chief NutThere are two things I need to regularly pull back the reigns on with my pre-teen boys. The desire for fast food and the insatiable need for their daily video game fix. Although I think it’s a brilliant co-branding collision, the combined marketing efforts of Burger King and XBox 360 is just downright scary for me as a parent. YIKES!
Deja View Redux
September 27th, 2006 by Chief NutI think I’ve heard that before!
Deja View?
September 26th, 2006 by Chief NutYou know how it works. You pay X dollars for a radio or TV spot and it gets so many “viewings”. Or, you put an ad in a newspaper or magazine and you get X amount of circulation. Done deal, right?! NOPE.
By thinking INside of the viral box, it’s possible to create an ad environment where a person will either get multiple exposures OR they’re motivated to share the ad with others (and not just another email virus idea). Some good examples:
- Personiva allows web users to upload their own pictures which get overlayed into YOUR company’s video or TV ads. The vid gets seen once … then tweaked and passed around to family and friends.
- Eggfusion’s idea of putting advertisements on eggs. OK, you may not send the eggs to your Aunt Sally, but think about it … you open the box at the store (one), you bring the eggs home and transfer them to the refrigerator door (two), you see these same eggs every time you open the door (three, or more), and you see them again when you crack them open (four).
As they say in the Guinness Ads …. “BRILLIANT!!”
One of These Days Alice
September 19th, 2006 by Chief NutThis morning’s post by Seth Godin (Where are the tweakers) asks an interesting question of why there are no companies or services that take existing websites and “tweak” them to make them a little better. After personally building over 350 websites in the past 15 years, I can very comfortably say why I don’t take on this task. The art of fiddling with a site is hard enough when the code is what you developed on your own. When faced with fiddling with other people’s (mostly garbage) code, the task becomes daunting. It’s usually easier to chuck the whole mess and rebuild from scratch … even if the look and feel of the site remains the same.
However, there is hope on the horizon. Lead by pioneers like Jeffrey Zeldman, there has been a movement for quite a while to move website design to a “Standards Based” (W3C Complient) system of completely separating aesthetics and form with content. To see how miraculous this can be, visit www.CSSZenGarden.com. In the right had column of the default page, there’s a list of other designs, click on them to see what happens to the look and feel of the site. Understand that ALL of these designs are using the same content … in fact, the exact same HTML page! The only thing that’s required to modify the look and feel is to point to a different style sheet.
So, how would this help in Seth’s quest to have control over tweaking and A-B testing?? I’m thinking the results would go …. sorry about this folks …. TO THE MOON! (groan)
A Big Bang
September 9th, 2006 by Chief NutHOW could I have not started the category with this one???? …. Nike collides with iPod
More Mashing
September 7th, 2006 by Chief NutEight hours of thinking can do wonders for distilling an idea. From the last post came the concept of “idea mashing”. This has become important enough (in my mind) to warrant the creation of a whole new category. From now on, innovative ideas, companies and products that are created this way will find their way into this spotlight. Keep a look out for them and PLEASE let me know when you see two ideas collide!
Idea Mashing
September 7th, 2006 by Chief NutLast week I had the pleasure of attending my first ECRM conference. This is an AMAZING event that matches buyers with vendors in a one-on-one setting quite different from your usual 10×10, beg-for-time, hand-out-business-cards in front of a bowl of candy, trade show fiasco.
During the event, we were asked a very interesting question by two young (although they claimed they were each 103 years old. Seriously!) ladies, Thao and Amy, from Hyland’s Homeopathic. The question was “Name an innovative product or company that you’ve encountered in the past 60-90 days.” WOW, what a question! Being a self admitted “creative” group we lucked out by having them ask us at the very end of our session. We got a reprieve and were instructed that we had to have an answer by 10:00 AM the following morning and we weren’t allowed to say “Acorn Creative.” Shooot.
This got me to thinkin’ about what is it that makes a product “innovative”. Brand stuff, easy … differentiation, boldness, powerful … okay, got that. But what about “innovative”. Well, we weren’t allowed to say Acorn Creative but it begs the question “what makes Acorn Creative innovative”. To me, one obvious answer was the combination of high-end, design with Carl Jung’s concepts of psychological archetypes. The innovation is the mashing together of two previously unrelated ideas.
Immediately, several other examples popped into mind. My answer to Thao and Amy, the next morning, included:
* The mashing of kitchen appliances with livingroom and office devices — The LG refrigerator with embedded TV and Internet connectivity
* The collision of sticky notes and photographs — 3Ms post-it photo paper
and (my favorite)
* The combo of contractor’s latex caulk and spray cheese — DAPs “Easy Caulk”
Putting caulk into a spray cheese can … who woulda ever thunk it? Sure, it seems obvious to you now, but the first person to put those ideas together is a suuuuper genius. When DAP launched the product it was designed for everyone. Contractors, however, still like the control of the old tried-and-true caulking gun. Weekend warriors and housewives, on the other hand, LOVE the stuff.
To make your product or service innovative, what two ideas can YOU mash together?
Feeeed Meee
